


Blotter

by Silver33650



Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [2]
Category: Fortnite (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Chess Metaphors, Gen, Villain Protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver33650/pseuds/Silver33650
Summary: The best way to create chaos when spy games begin on the island? Stay several steps ahead of the enemy and plan for everything.
Series: Tarnished Ghosts and Polished Shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923190
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Blotter

It had started its life as a puddle, but some miracle had helped it take the form of a man. Spilled into a tank, then fitted with a suit. Meant to resemble a man, but not human in the least. It had one purpose: to create chaos. It was given one tool to do so: a purple cube. There was no instruction beyond that, but none was required. It had all the direction it needed. There was a whole island out there, stuck in this strange loop and ripe for conquest. It went to work at once. It worked through this island and into the next. 

How best to spark turmoil in this curious place? A little bit of confusion, a healthy dash of malice, toss in some manipulations and stir with discord. That was all it took to set a man spinning like a top, and it delighted in watching when and how they would fall. 

Such as this man, this spymaster. Coming to its island with his audacious headquarters and misfit agents and hopeless mission. Oh yes, it knew all about that. More than even his team knew. Spies don't trust easily, and this man was no exception. He gave more deflections than explanations. Kept his answers terse and vague. But it knew the truth, what he wanted and why, and it knew how it would end.

These days, it lived in Steamy Stacks, in a solitary room where only it could enter. It watched everything on its island on its many screens. All of its many schemes, all unfolding step by step. Chaos required a certain level of planning to be truly destructive, and it was a master of it. It had to be, when there were so many variables at work on the island. But each one could be accounted for, even anticipated, in time. 

Not even this man could thwart its skill with planning. Oh, sure, he thought he was all that. It was easy to see, when he appeared at the entrance to Kevolution Energy and asked for a meeting. Nothing untoward, he claimed, but it knew better. It knew this was just a prelude to war. 

So it entertained him, knowing that it was the one truly being entertained. This man doled out his veiled threats with skill, to be sure, but it had anticipated this from the start. It could strike back harder than the man could hope to counter. It had so many good pieces to play. But no. Not yet. It wanted to see him suffer, after what his team did to Scratch. Fusion had been fitting retribution, but it wanted more. Always more. 

Let this man, this golden ghost, set up his agency and start his spy games. Let him bring his agents and his henchmen and his fancy weaponry. Let him think he had the advantage. He didn't. It had the advantage, and it always would. 

* * *

The first lesson it would teach him would be about trust. 

Midas thought himself cunning, and that was true, to an extent. He had taken the least probable action many times in the past, proving himself a worthy opponent. But no adversary could hope to surprise Chaos Agent, just complicate the route to victory. And since complications were a healthy sign of chaos, it hardly minded the trouble. 

Take this first agent, this Brutus. A man who'd lived his entire life switching sides as his fate was flipped like a coin by his employers. All they saw was the brawn, never the brains underneath. A tragedy, when Brutus could improvise his way out of any job gone wrong. The most valuable type of asset, and thus the most underappreciated. But there came to be two exceptions to that rule: Midas, and Chaos Agent itself. 

What a predicament for poor Brutus to be in now. Caught between the only two people who found him useful! There he was, the man who trained all the pawns on the chessboard of the clash, and both sides wanted him to be their knight. Who would Brutus choose? The man who gave him wealth, or the thing that gave him worth? 

Because, let's be honest, Midas did not quite value Brutus as much as he should. Oh sure, he threw around money, but that was only because he could, not because there was any belief in the value behind that paycheck. Midas just liked to be the one to give more. More money, more duties, more benefits. But there was no substance underneath it. Just that cold ambition, yearning for success. 

So clearly, Chaos Agent had an advantage, because it did care about Brutus. It cared the same way about him as it did all of its pawns, because on Shadow's side of the board, everyone was a pawn. Let Ghost underestimate them, underestimate it. It valued all of its pawns, because an appreciated pawn was a useful pawn. A happy pawn was easier to predict, and thus easier to manipulate. A happy pawn could be controlled. Chaos Agent made Brutus happy, dangling promise after promise, and they all paid off. They paid off because Brutus trusted it to keep its promises, and he was tired of Midas not delivering on his. 

The promises were all easily kept, anyway. Brutus had a thing for skulls, and unlike Midas, Chaos Agent didn't find that distasteful in the least. 

* * *

The second lesson it would teach him would be about investment.

Hilarious, right? To have to teach a man with the golden touch how to properly develop his assets? But there was the crux of it, of course. He was a man who sought to take the easy way out, all because of the power in his hands. The touch made him neglect all the people in his life as he pursued his goals. Some accepted this, resigned to their roles as side characters in his story. Others chose to leave the story. Exit stage right. And then there were those who chose to oppose him. Become his antagonists. Take the risk to become an enemy of the man with the golden touch. It was a brave soul who would take such a path. Brave, or reckless, and of course, Tina was the latter. 

Ah, Tina. Never had it seen a woman so fascinated by carnage. She'd been so lonely before the loop. No one to see the value in a girl who loved explosions. No place for a person with a penchant for pyrotechnics. But here, on this island, where violence was a way of life? The potential was limitless. All it would take was a bit of investment. 

Midas had told the woman she could live loudly, but he didn't do much to enable her to do so. The boom bow? A pale imitation compared to what it had been before the black hole. Sure, he gave her remote explosives, and proximity mines, and rocket launchers, but where were the clingers, the dynamite? The quad launchers, the grenade launchers, the proximity mine launchers? What, she had to just throw them, like anyone else? Manual labor, for someone who could shut a case of grenades without fear? An insult. 

He insulted her when he waved off her ideas. When he decided there was no need for the choppers to be fitted with missiles. He asked her for the one thing he'd needed from her, then went back to his work. It was so, so easy for it to swoop in and dangle the forbidden fruit, to offer the possibility of being heard. After all, what's the point of living loudly if no one will listen? She pretended not to think about it, but it wasn't long before she was blowing up Ghost mailboxes just as it had asked. Another pawn on the Shadow side of the board. 

Sure, he took his revenge, but at that point, even it didn't have a use for her anyway. 

* * *

The third lesson it would teach him would be about loyalty. 

Pets are wonderful creatures, are they not? Silent but submissive. Endearing in their staunch devotion. Even cats, prickly as they could be at times, were capable of a loyalty far deeper than any human could provide to another. Meowscles was no exception. He loved his headpats from the boss, but he loved gunning down enemies more. And Midas had shown his appreciation by giving his cat an entire ship. One that featured a golden statue of himself in the main hall, but what else could you expect from a man so arrogant as Midas? 

It knew there would be no way to sway Meowscles on temptation alone. The cat had everything he needed there already. An exercise room, a kitchen, and an entire ocean around him where he could fish to his heart's content? Midas certainly knew how to keep his pet happy. So Meowscles stuck with Ghost. And would have for eternity, had a certain mercenary not been hiding out at the Agency. 

Chaos Agent didn't care to look into the why of such things. It just worked with what it was given. And Deadpool was a very, very fascinating pawn. He couldn't resist a yacht like the _Marigold_. But there wasn't room for two captains of that boat, and the henchmen were easily swayed by Deadpool's promises of infinite raves. Meowscles couldn't give them that. He was too loyal to allow distractions from his mission. 

So the poor creature was evicted, and sought refuge in the only place where any cat ever feels safe: a cardboard box. Who would check in on this suffering feline? Who would coax him out and give him the much-needed headpats? 

Not Midas, when there were hatches to be installed in the lake. 

That's right. The owner of this suffering kitty chose his work over his pet, because the ends justified the means. All for the greater good, it supposed. But there was no greater good waiting at the end of Midas' mission, just a massive failure. And Chaos Agent wasn't opposed to occasional acts of goodwill in pursuit of continued chaos. 

So it went to the box factory and gave the cat a fishing rod. It's the small things that have the biggest payoffs. A side note to the now completed lesson. 

* * *

The last lesson it would teach him would be about... well, several things, because if Midas hadn't learned anything by now, then there wasn't much use in trying to filch another agent. Besides, he only had Skye left, and what could it do with a girl and a sentient hat that it couldn't do with what it already had? Let Midas keep his one agent. Let him build his prison and capture its agents. All it would take was for one to sneak out, one to scope out the Agency and prepare for the attack. Victory was assured at this point. It was now just a matter of doing so with style. 

Just look at the man with his silly machine. Tinkering and toiling, oh, what could it mean? The island was clueless, its citizens perplexed. Who knew what the golden ghost might do next?

Ahem. 

It let him have his doomsday, even let him have that brief period of success, for the sight of defeat on an enemy's face strikes all the sweeter where victory once lived. And as the lightning struck and the loop wavered, it plucked the man out of time and presented its proposal. 

Midas was still defiant, still confident he'd won; he rejected it out of hand. _Don't say no to my envoy_ , it warned, and let him return to witness of the consequences of his actions. It watched him sink to his knees when he saw the flood wall, watched him hang his head and wring his hands as the henchmen ran for cover. There was the defeat it had wanted to see. There was the despair it had craved from the start. 

It would not be long now.

* * *

And so it was that when Midas took the time to consider his options, he saw no other way. He accepted its envoy, and came to its side. It was gleeful, painting the clothes of the golden ghost black. Of course Midas didn't like that, but what did it matter when it had already won? Let the loser have a bit of fun. It was starting to have a certain fondness for gold anyway. 

It let him patrol what was left of the Agency, delighted at the wistful gazes he gave the ruins as he carried his golden gun. It wished this phase of the plan could last forever. But the flood wall wouldn't hold that long, and there was the icing on the victory cake yet to be seen. 

Enter the last piece on its side of the board: the queen it'd been keeping up its sleeve. Not that it was a secret to either of them where she was, but it knew that he thought that she'd stay out of the clash. A surprising bit of naivety, all sprung from the hope that he wouldn't have to fight his sister. But how could it pass up that sort of chaos? 

She didn't say no, but it could tell she was conflicted, even if she wouldn't say so. So it told her a story. 

_It begins with a boy in a park, one who found a very curious butterfly. It stole him away for hours while his little sister had fun in the playground. Ignorance is bliss, they say, and it was certainly true about her. For while her brother was lost in a strange world, she was beginning to understand how she fit into hers. But he would return with a very different outlook on the world, and it would never reconcile with hers._ She was very quiet. _What do you think? Did I get it right?_ It had, because off she went. 

And there it was, the cherry on top. See how the top tumbles now? Tossed out to the sea, completely vulnerable. Unable to pick himself up again, defenseless against any creature who passed. All it had to do was wait. But it did the time to gloat, to mock him a little; it couldn't resist. Goad him into hanging his head a little lower, to smother any last linger of hope. 

Time to rule the island with the most insidious form of chaos: order. 


End file.
